All Around the Block

School Administrator, Sept, 1996 by Michael D. Rettig, Robert Lynn Canady

The Benefits and Challenges of a Non-Traditional School Schedule

During the past 10 years, secondary schools across the country have changed from the traditional daily, six-, seven-, or eight-period schedule to block schedules, in which students meet daily for only three or four classes of longer duration.

The pace of growth in the number of schools implementing block scheduling has been dramatic. Based on Gordon Cawelti's 1994 national survey and Michael Rettig's 1995 survey in Virginia, we estimate that more than 50 percent of high schools in the United States are either using or considering some form of block scheduling.

We believe several compelling reasons exist for the rapid adoption of block scheduling, especially two common forms--the alternate-day schedule and the 4/4 semester plan. We will discuss here what those reasons are and describe the differences between them. We also will share data about affective and achievement effects, respond to some of the more common criticisms of block scheduling, and discuss what must occur if block scheduling is to continue to be a catalyst for change in high schools.

Multiple Advantages

During the 1980s, graduation requirements in many states were increased to as many as 24 Carnegie units for an academic diploma. The six- or seven-period, daily schedule left little room for electives in students' schedules.

To address this issue, many high schools added a period or two to the school schedule without lengthening the school day, which shortened class periods in some schools to as few as 39 minutes. To satisfy expanded graduation requirements and maintain student electives, many students became overwhelmed tying to adjust to eight or more teachers each day, multiple notebooks, homework assignments, and tests.

Also, serious questions were raised as to how teachers could perform the more productive teaching functions in such short, choppy, fragmented time periods. In the schools in which class periods were not added, students often were squeezed out of elective programs, such as music, vocational education, and fine arts because there wasn't "room in the schedule," according to a recent report by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Additional factors are motivating high schools across the United States to change schedules:

* instruction can become fragmented for students who attend as many as eight short classes in different subjects every day;

* an impersonal environment is created by the assembly-line, single-period schedule; and

* discipline problems are exacerbated by schedules that release thousands of adolescents into narrow hallways six, seven, or eight times each school day for four or five minutes of noise, stress, and chaos.

Common Forms

Block scheduling has many variations, each with its own benefits and issues to be addressed (see related story, page 14). The two most widely used models are the alternate-day schedule and the 4/4 semester plan.

Rather than classes meeting daily for 40 to 60 minutes, in alternate-day schedules students and teachers meet every other day for extended time blocks of 80 to 120 minutes. Alternate-day schedules also are referred to as "A/B," "Odd/Even," "Day 1/Day 2," and "Week 1/Week 2" schedules.

In the 4/4 semester plan students complete four "yearlong" courses, which meet for approximately 90 minutes every day over a 90-day semester. Teachers teach three courses each semester. Students enroll in four new courses (teachers teach three) for the second semester.

Block schedules offer many advantages. Teachers benefit from increased useable instructional time because each day presents fewer transitions and less time lost with class openings and closings. Teachers are able to plan lessons for extended periods of time and are motivated to use various instructional strategies other than lecture, such as models of teaching, learning centers, cooperative learning structures, and Socratic seminars.

A 1995 study by Carl Glickman, a professor at University of Georgia, of 820 high schools and 11,000 students reported that schools in which active learning methods were widespread had significantly higher achievement as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Fewer class changes result in a less stressful and cleaner school environment, an automatic reduction in the number of tardies, and fewer disciplinary referrals. Teachers generally have longer and more useful planning time because a 90minute daily planning period is provided in many block scheduling plans.

Compared to single-period, daily schedule models, students in an alternate-day schedule have fewer classes, quizzes, tests, and homework assignments on any one day, while students in the 4/4 plan concentrate on only four courses per semester. In alternate-day plans, because one or more days lapse between classes, when discipline problems occur, both teacher and student have time to cool down before facing each other in the next class. Daily record keeping also is reduced in the alternate-day plan.